Abstract:
Photovoltaics is essentially an interaction between sunlight and materials. The underlying physics of this interaction (and associated novel designs) are relatively well understood for the cases where the feature sizes of the material structures are larger than the wavelength of the light striking it. However, for very small features, at the nanoscale for example, there are plenty of phenomena that are neither fully understood nor manipulated. The speaker sees this area as an opportunity for further development of high-efficiency, affordable photovoltaic devices. This is a very broad topic, and so the speaker will focus on a few nanotechnologies that he has had research experiences with, i.e., nanophotonic light management, metallic nanonetworks for transparent window electrodes, and dielectric nanostructures for surface passivation.

Short Bio:
Dr. Zi Ouyang is a Research Fellow from School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering (SPREE), The University of New South Wales Australia (UNSW). He received his PhD in 2011 from UNSW, and Bachelor of Science in 2005 from School of Physics, Nanjing University of China. He has more than a decade of research experience in clean energy research from commercial-ready technologies to blue sky science. His research expertise covers energy generation-storage solutions, advanced photovoltaic devices, renewable energy system designs, new materials, etc. He is generally interested in any novel and practical technologies that can make the world sustainable. He was an Australian Renewable Energy Agency Fellow from 2013 to 2016. Prior to that position he was a Post-doctoral Fellow in Victoria-Suntech Advanced Solar Facility, conducting R&D research for Suntech Power. He published more than 30 journal papers, 3 patents and translated his supervisor Professor Martin Green’s textbook “Silicon Solar Cells: Advanced Principles & Practice”from English to Chinese. His publications have been cited more than 1000 times by Google Scholar.